Chgo. Driver Survival Seminar Set For Saturday, Feb. 5th

This FREE event will be held at Moonshine Bar & Restaurant located at 1824 W. Division Street in the Wicker Park neighborhood. Food and drink will be available during the seminar.

The Chicago Driver Survival Seminar is a two and a half hour motorist education boot camp to arm Chicago drivers with the basic tools of avoiding and fighting parking tickets, understanding and avoiding red light camera tickets, dealing with speeding and other traffic tickets, keeping the Denver boot off your car and keeping drivers up to speed on recent changes to driving laws.

It seems a bunch of “well organized” mothers in the city by the bay think they need special residential parking permits for their nannies according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco has an RPP program similar to Chicago’s, which restricts parking on certain streets to residents with city stickers with the proper permit. But San Francisco’s program doesn’t extend the resident’s parking privileges to people employed by the household.

The mommies think it’s important that their child’s caregiver have easy access to their car so they can take their precious Johnny or Janie to their weekly squash lesson or the country club. Without the special parking pass, nannies with car have to move their vehicle every two hours or face a $65 ticket.

There are actually wards in the City of Chicago that don’t have any parking meters.

Three wards in fact.

The 18th, 21st, and 34th.

All three wards are clustered together in the far southside of the city.

It’s not really surprising or a coincidence that these three wards don’t have any parking meters. Unlike more prosperous and traffic congested wards in Chicago, these three wards, which host such troubled neighborhoods as Ashburn, West Pullman, and Roseland, are not considered to have healthy retail areas which may require parking meters to manage the parking environment.

When Outside The Loop Radio’s Mike Stephen heard the Geek was at a police station Tuesday night, he thought it was the perfect place for a short interview.

The Geek and Barnet Fagel were holding a Chicago Driver Survival Seminar (DSS) at the brand new 23 District Police Station hosted by 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney that night, so Stephen popped in to check things out.

Thursday morning on Outside the Loop Radio, Stephen and I talk about the upcoming DSS events, Chicago’s #1 ranking in traffic congestion and the record high cost of gas prices in the city.

I parked there after it had snowed and the space was unrecognizable as a driveway since it had not been shoveled and at the building line there is a 7 foot chain link fence across the driveway from one building to another.

A few days later I returned to a ticket.

With the snow melted it was a little more clear I was in front of a driveway. At first I was surprised that the car had not been towed but considering the circumstances I now assume the driveway was not in use. Should I try to fight this ticket? Is there a chance for it to get dismissed?

In just one month, average Illinois gas prices have jumped $.16 per gallon–the highest prices ever for the month of January according to AAA Chicago’s gas price tracking website, Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

“Oil prices are trading at nearly $90 per barrel, which is having an enormous effect on the price of gasoline at the pump,” said Beth Mosher, director of public affairs for AAA Chicago via press release. “Unfortunately, at least in the near-term, consumers should get used to paying these high prices at the pump.”

Cook County’s average gas prices was even higher than the state average, jumping $.18 in the last month to an average $3.37 per gallon of regular gasoline.

While U.S. petroleum refiners are at near record production levels, worldwide global demand for oil is pushing up the cost of crude according to the American Petroleum Institute.